The United Nations Security Council voted on Tuesday to hold a rare meeting in Africa next month to try to focus international attention on the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region.
”This is certainly much more than symbolism,” said United States ambassador John Danforth, who will hold the council presidency next month when the 15-nation council meets in Nairobi on November 18 and 19.
”It furthers the peace process in Sudan [and] it’s an opportunity for the Security Council to demonstrate to all sides in the Sudan that the international community is not going to go away,” he told reporters.
It will be the first time the Security Council has held a formal meeting outside UN headquarters in New York since a gathering in Panama in 1973.
Danforth said the council will also meet with the African Union as the international community tries to ease the crisis in Darfur, where an estimated 70 000 people have died.
The council has passed two resolutions this year calling on the Sudan government to disarm the Arab militias that have carried out a scorched-earth campaign against indigenous blacks in the region. — Sapa-AFP